This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

FCA US invests $30 million in autonomous driving and advanced testing facility

Earlier this year, FCA agreed to deliver thousands of Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans to Waymo's self-driving service. Now, the company has invested more than $30 million at its Chelsea Proving Grounds for further development and testing of autonomous vehicles and advanced safety technologies.

FCA US announced it has invested more than $30 million at its Chelsea Proving Grounds in southeast Michigan for further development and testing of autonomous vehicles and advanced safety technologies. The new facility, which begins testing programs in September, features a dedicated autonomous highway-speed track, 35-acre safety-feature evaluation area, and a high-tech command center.

"The all-new facility at Chelsea Proving Grounds will help support and enable the successful rollout of the company's five-year plan laid out earlier this year," said Mike Manley, CEO, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and COO, NAFTA region. "Our ability to test for autonomous and advanced safety technologies enables FCA to offer our customers the features they want across our brand portfolio."

The facility will allow for testing of various levels of autonomy and enables the company to evaluate FCA vehicles using test protocols from third parties.

Products

The global automotive industry – worth $3.5 trillion in annual revenues – faces four concurrent disruptive threats: the connected car, the electric vehicle, autonomous driving technology and the concept of transport-as-a-service. Each threat is potentially existential to legacy carmakers who operate in a low growth, low margin sector that rattles with over capacity, and which is seeing its supply lines reset by cumulative advances in enabling technologies typically deployed by Tier-1 automobile sub-system suppliers. This report focuses on autonomous driving technology.

This issue focuses on the end-to-end transformation of dSPACE, external HMI for pedestrian safety, the latest in over-the-air software updates, Urban Air Mobility commercialization efforts, and our special feature on new mobility and the COVID-19 pandemic.